A Climate Change with Matt Matern
Climate Podcast

#107 – Chad Frischmann – A Climate Change with Matt Matern

You’re listening A Climate Change, this is Matt Matern, your host. I’ve got a great guest on the program – Chad Frischmann.

Chad has got an amazing background you’ll notice our new intro music it just kind of came in randomly to us unsolicited the universe is aligning with us in some way so this artists muda is Dave “smooth” Smith just sent us the music on solicited said hey, you guys, I’d love to contribute to your show and it’s super cool music so we’re glad to have that on the on the program as the warm up music.

And just to give a little background for those new listeners. My background is an attorney and music aficionado and one of the legal cases I’ve worked on is fighting Exxon and the Torrance Refinery for polluting the surrounding area.

I also ran for president 2020 As a Republican challenging Donald Trump because of his absolutely terrible environmental policies and his personal contempt for the environment. He sees the environment as something to be exploited and generate money from rather than an invaluable resource we need to protect for future generations.

So I was glad to support Joe Biden as I believed his concerns for the environment made him the far better candidate, now putting aside the 1000s of other reasons that Trump is unfit for audits. Let’s move on.

Thank you all for tuning in on the radio, please check out other episodes we have online at aclimatechange.com I’m excited to talk to Chad. Chad’s an incredibly smart dude and author of a New York Times best seller Drawdown the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming, he created Project Drawdown which is a leading source for climate solutions. And one of the things I really liked about Chad is his belief for the last 25 years that we’ve been inundated with fear based approaches to the climate, and it hasn’t worked. And we need to change it to one a possibility and opportunity.

Chad, welcome to the program and tell us a little bit about this possibility and opportunity of stopping climate change.

Hi, Matt, thank you so much for having me on your show. It’s a pleasure to be here today and to talk to you and all your listeners about real solutions that can solve climate change and go beyond creating regenerative future. I mean, as you say, there, you know, I think one of the most challenging parts of addressing the climate crisis that we’re in, is that for the last 25 years, we’ve been mired in a fear based approach to action, right?

The we have to be grounded in the reality of what climate change is the reality of what’s built into our system. And that does create a reasonable and understandable amount of fear in how we might approach things, but that’s not actually leading us to take action in a positive way that can address the climate crisis that we’re facing. So we have to shift that thinking from a fear based approach to on this based on the possibility of what that future can hold when you start to implement real existing solutions that already exists today.

And as you mentioned, my work with Project Drawdown, I led that team for over eight years, and we mapped models and described all the different technologies and practices that exists today, that taken together as a system of solutions can not only stop global warming, begin the process of reversing it.

But it requires that mindset shift. Because if we’re stuck in that, you know, a system based on fear, based on competition, and based on a fixation of problem, right, we’re so oriented on like how to fix that and tweak the problems of the system that we’re currently operating in. This is not leading us to, you know, envisioning the future that we actually really want. If we took a moment and imagine what that future looks like, instead of trying to tweak the system and fix the problems of the past.

Well, we actually have a pathway, if we see that and imagine that future a pathway to solve the greatest challenges that humanity has ever faced.

So it’s all really about changing mindsets changing from fear to possibility, changing from problem fixation to solutions orientation, and changing from conflict and competition to collaboration. One is a recipe for disaster or an apathy, indifference to the status quo. And the other is a glorious opportunity to reimagine recreate a future economy to become leaders of that future economy and future society that benefits all life.

The solutions are there. We know what they are. We know We can do to achieve these really seemingly audacious goals. But it takes that mindset shift.

Yeah, I love it. And I feel like I can relate to that on a personal level, when I see things as a matter of opportunity that I’m going for, it’s much more exciting. And I can kind of generate more energy behind that versus a fear based situation, I get into panic mode or apathy feeling like, Oh, I’m just overwhelmed, I can’t do it. Screw it, I might as well just eat cheeseburgers or something.

That’s right, that’s a perfectly natural response. And you shouldn’t, we shouldn’t run away from that. Because that grounds us in the reality of what’s actually happening. But if we have a framework that can quickly turn that fear, and that desire to go eat that cheeseburger to say, well, actually, I can eat a delicious plate of pasta, instead of that cheeseburger, or maybe even an Impossible Burger or some other kind of, you know, alternative meat product that tastes delicious, I can actually have an impact on that, and make that transparent.

So it’s about taking those first steps. After you ground yourself, in reality, taking those first steps to possibility. And each step thereafter becomes easier and easier.

Right, I was just having a conversation yesterday with some friends about just that thing about eating healthy and, and the meat substitute products that are out there that actually are really tasty. And there was one restaurant here in LA that serves a dish that’s kind of a meat substitute. And I and I think it’s so close to meat, it really can fool people. It’s so amazingly good.

So there is a possibility of enjoying our lives and letting go of some of the things that we feel are natural, cultural go twos. You know, there is a future out there. That’s, that’s delicious and tasty. It doesn’t have to be the worst food ever, you know, we can we can make this good. and have it be healthy for the planet.

That’s right. I mean, that’s right, Matt. I mean, there’s even a company that, you know, I’m an adviser to the an organization that’s investing in supporting this company called juicy Marvels great name, right. And they’re actually created a alternative stake. Imagine that an actual state that you can cut into has the same texture, flavor profile as a delicious, juicy steak, but it is all plant based.

So be this is this is really around the corner, where we’re going to have that transformation, how we how we eat, how we consume in a way that, you know, is satisfying our well being and what we desire, but also is good, better for the planet.

Yeah, I mean, there are great restaurants out there, and you see more and more of them that are serving great food that I could say, You know what I could I could eat more plant based if I if I go to the restaurants like this. I’m not, I’m kind of at a one to some days, three days a week. Vegetarian, but yeah, you know, trying to ramp it up a bit more.

And it’s doable. It’s doable, and it’s and it’s fine. Like I don’t I don’t feel like I’m suffering. And I think that’s the part we have to create it in a way that we see possibility opportunity, like you’re saying versus looking at it like, oh my god, I gotta give up this stuff that I like, and it’s going to be terrible.

Absolutely. And you know, it’s interesting. I mean, a lot of it has to do with media itself, right? And if you think if it was the All American breakfast, right? What do you what do you imagine eggs, toast, some sausage and bacon or something like this, right?

That’s what we think of when we go to the American diner, we see that and it’s actually become ubiquitous in every hotel around the world. You get a standard breakfast, eggs, bacon, maybe some fried potatoes, whatever it is, and it’s become ubiquitous. But actually, this is not a traditional way that we’ve actually consumed breakfast. This is something that the branding companies and PR companies created about 100 years ago, my dear friend, the Chef Charles Michel often talks about this, we created the illusion that it is traditional to eat this all American breakfast was an ad agency created this.

So if we think about the power of media and the power of advertisers to change, how we behave, how we think, and our mindsets, we can actually redefine what we consider to be the traditional all American breakfast or the traditional anything that we do into something that is better for the planet, but it’s not taking away it’s not destroying how we want to enjoy and live and our lives and with our with our friends and family and communities.

We can have that and have that well being and have those livelihoods and better for the planet. But we need to have media we need to have the advertisers we need to have people from all spectrums from from individuals all the way to government and everything in between taking action to redefining what how we see and perceive what is good for us and good for the planet.

Well, I think that you It’s kind of a brainwashing that you just described, which is telling us a story. That’s not true. And the story is that bacon and eggs are the thing that we eat for breakfast when it’s just not a real accurate picture of, of what we probably did eat 100 years ago, or 200 years ago, it’s just something that we were sold.

And then because it’s great advertising, it persuades us. And then we think that and then we’re brainwashed by the advertising, which is kind of sad on one level, but it’s also exciting that we can recognize, hey, that was just some, you know, good advertising slash bad advertising. And now we can we can reset.

So you’re listening to A Climate Change. This is Matt Matern, your host, and I’ve got Chad Frischmann on the program. We’ll be right back and just one minute to talk to Chad about the ways we can change our behavior to change the planet.

You’re listening to A Climate Change, I’ve got Chad Frischmann on the program today, Chad, you know, we kind of jumped over your bio a little bit, and why don’t you tell us a little bit about how you got to the position you’re at kind of like your life story in two minutes or less? What brought what you brought you to the environment? What would made you an environmental activist?

Thank you, Matt, for that question. I’ll try to keep it down to two minutes. You know, it was actually a trip I’ve whatever, three to five, thank you. But, you know, it was actually a trip to Sub Saharan Africa. I was I was studying I was doing a PhD work at Oxford University, three years into it, working on institutional identity formation in the Holy Roman Empire of the 16th century. That suppose my PhD work, do you believe it or exciting, right? Propaganda, how we use propaganda in order to change institutions?

Well, I went on a trip to Sub Saharan Africa on sabbatical for two months. And while there, I fell in love with the people that I met along the way that community is the joy that they were they that they had was starkly different from what I grew up with in the United States, and when I experienced England is this sense of community and togetherness. But I also fell in love with the biodiversity, the beautiful wildlife that’s so special in Sub Saharan Africa. But sadly, at the same time, I also saw the degradation of that environment.

And I saw the poverty of the people in the communities that I witnessed firsthand, the poverty and the lack of access to economic opportunity, the lack of education, the inequality of the very system that I had been studying the formation of this No, no small measure was a byproduct of that system. So after about two months of backpacking through Sub Saharan Africa, I flew back to, to Oxford, gave up my PhD, flew to California, on the day Obama was elected to office actually.

And from that point forward, for the last 15 years, I’ve been dedicating my life to the environment, and really focusing on this nexus between sustainable development. So how do we improve livelihoods in a way that’s within our planetary boundaries? How do we preserve and protect biodiversity and the environment? And also very importantly, how do we work to improve the livelihoods of local and indigenous peoples communities around the world those who are most affected by our changing climate?

And so for the last 15 years, I’ve been focused on that those areas. And that led me after quite a few years to launch project drawdown with Paul Hawken and Amanda Ravenhill. And and so far, the rest is kind of history.

So tell us a little bit about Project Drawdown.

Yeah, so Project Drawdown we launched in 2014. And I led the team there for about eight years, and project drawdown was, you know, when we first launched it, we didn’t think it was necessarily going to go anywhere, we figured who would want a list of solutions to climate change? Well, turns out everybody did.

So what we did project drawdown was a nonprofit organization that brought together researchers and scientists from all over the world. And we designed a framework to evaluate what the potential of those existing technologies and practices were at scale, and whether or not we could actually achieve our Paris Agreement. Paris targets two degree Celsius warming target or the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming target, described by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC is what we need to stay within our, you know, boundaries before we go to some really problematic tipping points in this world.

So we evaluated the system of solutions that could stop and begin the process of reversing global warming. We introduced the concept of drawdown into the climate space. And after eight years of leading that team, he recently left and started a new organization called regenerative intelligence, which we’re really excited about. We just launched that last week on Earth Day.

Oh, that’s awesome. I was gonna go back to some of your work at Project Drawdown and one of the things that caught my eye as I was looking at was your work on refrigerants and the incredible amount of damage that refrigerants do to our our atmosphere and ways that we might be able to change that and why don’t you give us a little bit more detail as to your thoughts about how we could make a big shift in that area?

Well, that’s a good question. So refrigerant management refrigerants, hydrofluorocarbons are some of the most highest potential global warming potential greenhouse gases that we are emitting today as part of our economy and they’re ubiquitous and any of our refrigeration units or air conditioning units. They exist to help cool the air and they’ve become meaning increasingly more important and our economy as we are having are experiencing increased temperatures increase global warming, we’re going to have to have more of these refrigeration units and in circulation.

The problem is we’re using reusing hydrofluorocarbons, that are gases, refrigerant gases that are hundreds to 1000s of times more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. And sadly, during in these, what we call refrigerant banks, their leakage occurs. So these hydrofluorocarbons escape into the atmosphere and causing significant damage to to to climate change, increasing global warming temperatures.

And there are very easy ways that we can address this first of all, of course, refrigerant management during the lifetime of those units in our homes, we can ensure that we’re not leaking these hydrofluorocarbons into the atmosphere, while they, these appliances are in use. And when they are at the end of life, we can take these appliances instead of dumping them to a landfill where they remain the landfill emitting those hydrofluorocarbons, we can actually dispose of those destroy the hydrofluorocarbons, facilities.

So where there are many ways in which we can deal with this issue, and there’s alternatives, there’s natural alternatives that can be used and replaced to replace those hydrofluorocarbons. So the point here is, you know, nobody would ever think that refrigerate gases is such an important role to play in stopping global warming.

Because we don’t really think about all the things in our system that are contributing to it. And the reality is, is nearly everything we do as a human species, every activity across our across our economy is producing greenhouse gases, whether that’s carbon dioxide, or methane, or nitrous oxide, or hydrofluorocarbons, fluorinated gases, these are everything we do from whether we turn on our lights from the coal oil and gas fired plants that are churning up fossil fuels into the atmosphere, carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

When we turn our lights, or you know, when we’re burning, you know, extracted dead phytoplankton in the tailpipe of our cars to move from point A to point B, like everything we do is producing emissions. And this is where the opportunity comes, because we have to change everything in order to solve climate change, nor to begin reversing global warming.

And so this is an opportunity to change everything, we can actually create that future by design. And if we have existing solutions, like refrigerant management, and alternative refrigerants that are readily available already exist today, and in many most cases are economically viable, certainly in the long, medium and long term economically viable, well, then it’s kind of a no brainer, we can actually change that system will tell us how we would change, you know, paint that picture.

I assume that there might need to be some legislation that would direct manufacturers to to do this, because otherwise, a lot of manufacturing will not change their direction without a changing of the entire playing field. Because you know, like GE isn’t going to change if Maytag isn’t going to change, a train, that type of thing.

So that’s one element of it. And then who are the companies that are that are making the natural alternatives?

Well, I mean, that’s a good question. I mean, it really takes everybody in the system. So we do need legislation and regulatory mechanisms to take a step up and prohibit the continued. I mean, we have the Kigali agreement, for example, which is you know, it’s an international agreement. That phases out the production of hydrofluorocarbons is very similar to the Montreal Protocol.

So it’s phasing out hydrofluorocarbons. And so we need to ensure that this is actually happening. And so we need legislation and regulatory mechanisms to put these mandates on to industry to ensure that they are making this transition. So that has to happen. Yes. And we also need leaders in the space we need industry leaders.

Let me let me let me just stop you there for a second and say where are we at in the US and and in the states state by state now that we need to go through 50 states Ah, but you know, take take the leaders like California and New York. Where are we today regarding federal and state legislation to actually phase out? HFCs?

Well, I mean, we’ve made a lot of progress, I will have to say over the course of the last, you know, five years, but there’s still a lot more to do. I mean, California certainly made a lot of regulations and legislation to phase out hydrochloric acid, I think they’re really the leader across the country right now.

And I believe that the federal government has agreed to a commitment to the Kigali agreement to phase out this but I will pause and say that I’m not 100% up to date with all the policy. And legislation is going around the country and currently what the administration is, but I do know that we have a long way to go.

And I just had a conversation. A few weeks ago with a leading industry, an industry leader in refrigeration has been saying, the need for alternative refrigerants that need to be phasing out. hydrofluorocarbons for decades literally mean, this is not a new problem.

We’ve known this for a long time the refrigeration industry has known those who are producing these hydrofluorocarbons have known for a long time that is the pollutant that is causing global warming, just like many of the other industries that are continuing to pollute, and cause global warming and pollute in many other ways, too, we have to remember that these are, you know, there’s climate change, right?

There’s this global warming that’s happening. But we have so many other challenges and problems that are occurring because of these pollutants are putting into our air into our water into our terrestrial systems. So they have known about this for a long time. And there’s a long, long way to go.

And someone was just telling me recently said our work at Project Drawdown have brought refrigerant management up to like the top of people’s agenda items, that people have lost interest. So we need media, we need more media, we need more folks bring it back to the attention of folks. And also that legislation.

Absolutely. So you’re listening to it here on A Climate Change, and everybody get up to speed, we need to hold our public officials accountable to change the policies and enforce the reduction of HFC.

So that’s our job as citizens is to be informed and to promote actions. So we’ll be back in just one minute with our great guest, Chad Frischmann, to talk to us more about ways that we can change this world and make it even more wonderful.

You’re listening to A Climate Change. My guest today, Chad Frischmann of RegenIntel or Regenerative Intelligence, kind of shortened, and made it cooler. Tell us about RegenIntel, and how it got started and why it got started and what kind of projects you’re working on.

So RegenIntel, definitely a cooler sounding name than Regenerative Intelligence. But I actually think your general intelligence is pretty cool. And if you compare it to artificial intelligence, regenerative intelligence is a whole discussion to have there, but for another time.

So RegenIntel is an activation agency and advisory. What we mean by that is, we are working to help guide and steward organizations and individuals to become activators to actually implement solutions.

So we talked a lot about earlier in this episode, all the different climate solutions that we’ve profiled that project drawdown, and that’s great, right, understanding the system of solutions that taken together as a whole. And we need every single one of those solutions in order to solve global warming, for sure.

But understanding what all those solutions are, and what the possibility of that impact is over the next 30 years in terms of climate and their financial impact. That is hugely important. That sets the bar kind of like where we want to go for climate. But how do you actually do it? And so that’s what region Intel is about?

How can we actually activate individuals and organizations to take their first steps towards understanding how to implement solutions in the context in which they’re working on? And you know, and we do that by by assembling, you know, a sort of a agency, a talent agency, we call it an ecosystem of experts and stars I call it actually the cosmos of stars.

I’m a little bit woowoo Matt, to be honest, I have become woowoo Mike since I moved to California. But the cosmos. And the idea here is, you know, just like there are billions of stars in the cosmos, each shining brightly. There are billions of stars on this planet, who are waiting for their superpower. was to be ignited or steer towards that common purpose of creating, you know, that regenerative future.

And we, at bridging into work to find those super powered thinkers and doers, in order to activate them in the right constellations of groups, to work on projects to work on, you know, real, real implementation pathways for organizations and individuals. And there, we’ve launched region Intel.

Just last week, as I said, on Earth Day, with over 65 of those world class thinkers and doers. And what I mean by thinkers and doers, I want to talk about this for a second. When I was younger, I really thought the world consisted of just thinkers and doers. And then as I grew older, I realized there’s a lot of talkers out there.

Just talk, talk, talk. And at some point, I realized there’s a lot of takers as well, a lot of appropriators who come in and they take and they have a kind of a colonizer mindset where they absorb, appropriate, and then continue to talk and continue to take. And so when I set out to create region, Intel, I wanted to make sure it was comprised of just thinkers and doers.

People who are really doing the work, who really understand the solutions that they’re operating the systems, how they work together, and, and their cross disciplinary, their, their cross geography is cross generations. And there’s some of the greatest thinkers and doers that I know. And I’ve been blessed to know over the course of my career, just launching with 65 of them.

But RegenIntel is designed to be an agency that brings more and more of those thinkers and doers, world class thinkers and doers with activated superpowers to help transform and educate those organizations and individuals to start actually implementing doing doing it. Right. How do we actually do this? Instead of talking about it?

I’m all for that, excuse my language. I just, oh, my goodness, yeah, I’m shocked. But yeah, I get it. And I feel like my arc from just thinking about the environmental problems or reading about them decades ago to taking some modest steps more recently, it’s kind of a not as fast of a path as maybe I would like but I, I continue to reach out to people who have expertise, like yourself, learn more, and try to take action and in accord with the ideas that I’m learning from the smartest people I can find.

And that’s precisely it. Right? I mean, how do we find the right group of people that can help folks like you, organization, some of the projects that we’re working on, for example, we launched with over five, six sorry, I should say, launch clients, which include one of Europe’s largest climate tech VCs, a startup VC, we have NGOs, we worked with Representative sbrt office who just introduced the earth bill to the US Congress in December, reintroduced is the earth act, stop climate pollution.

In the United States by 2030. They have over five other signatories region, Intel did the analysis to determine the impact of the earth Act, which is I think, the most ambitious piece of legislation ever proposed to any national legislature that I’m aware of. So we work with governments from local to national scale, we work with NGOs doing really transformative work.

We work with VCs and philanthropists, we work with businesses and corporations. And we want to be sure to guide and steer them towards a pathway that is going to make them leaders of tomorrow, today with the right set of solutions that not only you know, solve for their climate targets, which is like, you know, what we’ve done in the past, we understand all those climate solutions.

But what about our sustainability goals? How can we solve our climate targets and their sustainability goals at the same time? And I think more importantly, that, how can we not only solve for our sustainability goals, but kind of push beyond the system to a regenerative model? Right? We think about a regenerative system, broadly regenerative economy more broadly than just regenerative agriculture, are just ecosystem restoration, to how can we envision our renewable energy systems as regenerative our built environment as a regenerative system?

So the solutions that exist already today, that can help solve for climate change, can also have those direct impacts on our sustainable development goals. And if done right, with principles that are aligned with that regenerative future, can be done and help usher in that regenerative future of tomorrow. So we want to help guide our organizational clients and individuals to help steer them in that pathway so that we can solve for multiple challenges at the same time and be leaders, really leaders of that next economy that we know is coming.

Well, I’d say just kind of talking about some personal experience. I we had a guest on the show from 1% for the planet, and they have like 5800 different nonprofits that they fund from that 1%. And you can choose the ones that you like. And I feel like that was a good starting or good step for our organization, our law firm to take to get people engaged in the process, like, hear, we’re engaging. And that to me is, it’s not the end game.

But it’s, it’s the first step. And and that’s part of the lethargy of, you know, people around the world. And I can say personally is taking that first step. So you like, you need to take her step. And then once you take the first step, the next step is a little bit easier.

But in terms of something else you had said, versus, you know, kind of a regenerative power. I was curious as to whether or not you’re familiar with any solar or wind, energy companies that are using maybe more regenerative type approaches, approaches to generating solar and wind power? Because obviously, those take some degree of mining and energy. Is there a greener path to two technologies like that?

I mean, absolutely. I mean, first of all, I never go on shows and endorse any particular company. It’s sort of my own personal Mo. So, but there are companies that are making headway here. But I think more importantly, when we think about this extractive model, well, it is true, you’re absolutely right, in order to create that fully renewable energy system that we know that we need, requires more extraction of rare earth minerals, and materials from from the earth that that is really disruptive, particularly towards indigenous peoples communities where oftentimes these resources are in abundance.

And oftentimes, indigenous peoples are being displaced from their own territories for that mining. And it requires a lot of thoughtful regulation, to prevent that protection and enshrinement of indigenous peoples land tenure rights to their lands to prevent that from happening on those lands.

But you’re right, there’s still there’s still an extractive process. And so, you know, when people often ask me about this, and I say, Look, I’m not saying that a renewable energy system of today is a regenerative system, but it can become that. And why is that, because if we innovate the hell, out of the solutions that already exist, today, we innovate those solar panels, and make them smaller, and smaller and smaller, more resource productive, and man have different kinds of materials, which are already happening.

There’s already researchers all over the world that are transforming how we think about renewable energy, by transforming the technology itself, that’s not inventing some new silver bullet that’s going to come along and change everything in the system is taking the concept of solution that already exists today. And they get a hell of a lot more efficient, more resource productive and and by resource productive, I mean, you need to extract less and less and less and less and less to produce more and more and more and more of that power.

That’s happening already today. And in five to 10 years, it’s going to we’re gonna have transformations in that, that space. So when I say we need to build today with a regenerative mindset, to steer industry, it with those regenerative principles, but solving our targets, climate targets, with the urgency that the climate emergency demands today, right? Don’t lose sight of that, and then innovate the hell out of those technologies, in order to make them more and more part of a regenerative future in five to 10 years to come.

Well, that’s well said. And I think that’s totally in line with what you were talking about earlier, which is having opportunity and possibility being the guiding lights for for the future. And kind of it’s a much more exciting future, the way you describe it, versus kind of this gloom and doom scenario. And I think that will turn people on saying, oh, okay, that’s that’s an exciting future.

 I can kind of get behind that. And then you have less people fighting the change and why to be a part of it and saying, Hey, this is this is a lot of economic possibility, even putting aside doing good for the planet. This is the wave of the future. Why don’t we get behind it? Because if we don’t do it here in the States, somebody else is going to do it.

So it’s coming. It’s just a question of who’s going to be the leader in this and why not the US. So you’re listening to a climate change.

This is Matt Matern, and I’ve got Chad Frischmann. We’ll be back in just one minute to talk to Chad about all the other great work they’re doing it RegenIntel.

You’re listening to A Climate Change, this is Matt Matern, and I’ve got Chad Frischmann on the show. Chad, you’ve got your own podcast Chad’s Climate Quest, and you tell the listeners about that, as well as what projects region Intel was involved in. Tell us a little bit about the virtuous cycle of collaborative intelligence and why that’s an effective solution to combat climate change.

All right, well, thanks, Matt. Yeah, those are those are all big questions, or Chad’s Climate Quest. I think that originated last year. And so far, we’ve gone through about only 2020 episodes.

So I’ve got a lot more to catch up with you. You met. But the whole premise is, you know, there’s so many amazing thinkers and doers like I talked about earlier, the cosmos that we launched at region, Intel comprises of some of them, but there’s so many more out there, real solutionist. And so the whole premise is, I am on my quest to find those thinkers and doers.

I want to go find, who are the people that are really implementing those solutions are really coming up with brilliant, you know, planetary Great thinking, and ideas and visions of that future. And I want to interview them. And so we come together, because, you know, this is an opportunity. As I said earlier, this is an opportunity to change everything. Climate change affords us this terrible at a terrible, terrible cost, the realities of climate change.

But it’s also an amazing opportunity. And once in the history of our species, do we have an opportunity to change everything? Because we have to? So how do we create that future by design, and so Chad’s climate quest is a podcast, where we try to find those people who want to help create that future. And they’re realistic people are folks who are in business and investment and their environmental do gooders.

They’re everybody across the spectrum, because we need to bring everybody to the table in order to do that. Anyway, so jazz climate class is a great thing. I encourage you all to take a look at it. It’s a Twitter space at the moment. But we’re advancing into a formalized produced to podcast later this year. But region Intel regenerative intelligence, which is you know, jazz climate quest is created by region, Intel, it’s part of my pathway to finding all those great thinkers and doers. And to bring them into our agency.

But RegenIntel, as I said, we work on a number of different projects, line of services that we offer our clients, for example, we do evaluations, we evaluate your current activities, what are you doing right now? And how in alignment? Are they with the real climate potential for achieving your climate targets?

So we do an evaluation of your climate impact, but also your sustainability goals? Right? How aligned is your climate targets and your sustainability goals? And where are you with your regenerative principles, we also work with some clients on what we call pathways.

These are those pathways to creating those becoming those regenerative leaders of tomorrow, we work directly with them to scope out what are the system of solutions they can be implementing internally, to become that regenerative leader, but also externally and how they can they can be a supporting and a leader in their industry, to again, cheap, achieve their climate targets, stability goals and regenerative principles. And then finally, we do something we call Keystone projects.

These are large scale big projects that we see are absolutely fundamental to creating the regenerative economy of the future. And I’ll profile that one real quickly. You know, we’re in partnership with one of our clients called grounded, which is a philanthropic, nonprofit organization that works to really accelerate the most impactful climate solutions on the planet. They work on communications and media, they work in legislation and the and they work with real solutions on the ground.

And a lot of working with indigenous peoples around the planet. And so together with grounded and regen, Intel, we launched a project we call project peoples. And what this is, is how do we bring together an aggregate knowledge about solutions for the planet that come from indigenous peoples wisdom, because Indigenous peoples have, through countless generations, develop solutions, planetary great solutions that ensure that we are living and operating within our planetary boundaries, and that our well being is met.

So we’re working with indigenous peoples from all over the world, from every continent, every generation, every perspective in the indigenous space are come together to help bring together those solutions. Now, imagine the work that we draw did with drawdown the system of solutions to solve for climate change from the Western scientific perspective. Well, now we’re doing the same thing from an indigenous perspective. And then we’re weaving these together.

So how do we have a complete and composite knowledge system that blends indigenous wisdom with scientific knowledge in a way to really Advanced, a more holistic and comprehensive set of solutions for the planet. You know, policymakers, investors and business have come to me, I can’t tell you how many come to me and say we want to be investing communities on the ground, we want to invest in real solutions. But we also want understand what those solutions are, we don’t truly understand that.

So we work with indigenous peoples around the world, to bring together those solutions to do the analysis, and to bridge those knowledge systems that we can accelerate more and more solutions and divert more capital, more policy, more attention to these local and indigenous communities on the ground. So that’s just one of the projects that, for example, that region entails doing.

I mentioned the Earth Build Earth Act already. So we really spend a lot of different types of decision makers and levels of levels of agency, and different types of sectors. And we can do that, because we have such an amazing Cosmos ecosystem of experts that can be activated to do this work with us.

Well, it sounds great. I was, as you were talking, I was thinking of the seventh generation principle and in listening to a Native American leader and talking about if anything that they would look at would be how is this going to affect seven generations down the road?

And I think that, unfortunately, you know, capitalism for doing some good things, hasn’t asked that question hasn’t asked that question of, how will this process how will this pollution affects seven generations down the road? It was more, how can we make money this quarter or year or the next business cycle? Whatever?

And that’s just the wrong question. So, you know, it’s no wonder that we ended up with some of the technologies we ended up with, because we weren’t asking the right question. You know, to solve the problem of cars going uphill, they decided to put lead in gasoline, they knew that lead was poisonous, but they just did it anyway.

So, you know, that’s, we’ve got to, we’ve got to shift our mindset for the long term. And unfortunately, we didn’t do that for generations and generations, but we can change now. So tell us a little bit about the Global Solutions Alliance. And what are you doing with that?

Well, yeah, just wanted me to touch on one point about your, your intergenerational thinking and why that’s so so important. And it’s because, you know, because of climate change, the decisions we make today are the most important decisions in the entire history of our species. Because they don’t affect just us, they already are affecting people today.

The number of people already affected by climate disaster, this last year, is in the 10s of millions of people, it’s only going to get worse. And the decisions we make today are going to affect us today, our children and grandchildren tomorrow, and every single future generation to come. And if we’re not thinking about that intergeneration ality than we have, then then we’re gonna go down in history, as the generation that lost that one moment is one moment that we had to change everything.

And so it’s so important to think intergenerationally, and the Global Solutions Alliance kind of feeds into that. We believe very strongly, that one of the great challenges in order to really thinking in the long term and really accelerating solutions is the lack of accessible, usable and meaningful knowledge. Now, we all think that we’re awash with knowledge and data we have we know what the solutions are, we know everything we know everything.

The reality is, is we don’t, we don’t know everything. And we don’t know how to implement everything. We don’t know how we don’t have the capacity to think through every scenario. But that data and information is there, we’ve stopped being used as unaccessible or being used in a way that allows us to make those decisions from a really informed place. The Global Solutions Alliance exists in order to help create that regenerative economy of the future by creating a knowledge base that is free and open source public good for humanity.

We’re launching a digital platform we call the Solutions Collaboratory. This will be a collaboration center for organizations and individuals free and open source, knowledge commons with data and information and knowledge about solutions that again, across just done with the climate silo but cross due to sustainability and regeneration.

So climate plus plus plus plus, as well as a modeling framework and tool sets that people can make sense out of this. And really, it’s about breaking down silos. So the Global Solutions Alliance, which has already been founded by for profit and nonprofit entities, is coming together to create the collaboratory in order to accelerate solutions and make this that knowledge base for the future and all future generations to come.

Will tread  Amazing work that you’re doing and I applaud you and your and your partners at Regeneron Intel and everybody should go check out your website at regenerative Intel dot Earth. It was great having you on the program.

You know I’m a strong believer in building coalitions and so you’re, you know, you’re speaking my language there.

You know want to link up with like minded folks like Chad and check out our social media channels like those and follow both of us and we’ll follow you if you’re up to good things and, and find a group that you’re passionate about and find some place that you can contribute and your time your energy your talents.

Check out our program at aclimatechange.com and follow it on Spotify and Apple Music and follow Chad’s Climate Quest. Sounds like an exciting program a lot of great thinkers and doers. Looking forward to working with you Chad in the future.

Thank you man. Really appreciate you having me on the show. And just a small little correction. It’s RegenIntel.earth.

Oh, there we go – RegenIntel.earth. Everybody check it out.

Thanks.

Thanks for being on the show.

Thanks so much, Matt.

Everybody, tune in next week.